Gonna give leggings a try

These are pretty cool, right?
 

 

Or what about these cool veggie burger styled leggings?

The milf

A couple years back I met some friends in Menomonie, WI for a winter bike race. It's a scavenger hunt, alleycat style bike race. You get a list of addresses and you have to ride your bike to each one, do something there, get a stamp, and then the first person back to the bar with all the stamps, wins. The fun part is that you eventually have to probably ride your bike across the hopefully frozen lake to get all the stops in a semi-timely manner.This race is generally on the boozier side of bike races I do. And it's about a 35 minute drive from my house. Always a hoot.

That said, I like to drive over by myself, hit the RAW VEGAN RESTAURANT THERE TO FUEL UP FOR THE BIG RACE BRO, have a coffee, and then meet up with the crew, the squad, the real ones ready to ride. Then I like to try to get a bite after the race if I am coherent enough to drive or whatever. Well what the hell does The Milf have to do with a boozey bike race in Menomonie. More like MILF NOM NOM NOMenie. Read on.

I went to the local wood fired pizza and brewery spot, called Lucette. I heard people were stoked about it, and I had time so I stopped off for a bite. It was pretty hoppin', so I was happy to get a seat at the bar. As luck would have it, three stools opened up next to me right after I ordered a beer. Oh, and who quickly grabbed the stool next to me? Take a guess.

Yep, "The Milf". 

 

Not like porn-milf, not like Maitland Ward, not like Kayden Kross, not like Brittney O'Connell, not like Lisa Ann, not like Julia Ann, not like Xev Bellringer, not like Kit Mercer, Not like Cory Chase, not like, well you get the idea.

 

But still kinda like northwestern Wisconsin-milf.

Then who quickly grabbed the other two stools? My guess is her husband and teenage son. Right away she was really chatty.

"What are you drinking?" - This is pretty normal. It was a dark beer FYI.

"What did you order?" - Also pretty reasonable.

"Why are you by yourself?" - Kinda weird, considering the situation here.

"Are you wearing looooongjohns under those pants?" - Woah. But no I wasn't (it was a warm day in February!)

If you know me at all, you probably know that I have a smallish streak of vanity. I like to have my good looks appreciated and I guess my personality too. But it got to the point where it was kinda awkward because her husband WAS RIGHT THERE. AND I THINK HER SON TOO.

But then it GOT REALLY WEIRD. Once her food came, she dug right in. Like DUG RIGHT IN, mid sentence, and robotically turned her head towards the pizza and started scarfing it. And this probably 45 year old woman who was able to confidently flirt with a 35 year old dude in front of her family, would eat each piece of pizza up until the crust, and put the uneaten crusts into a growing little pile of crusts!

 

What the heck where did you learn this is OK.

Haven't seen anybody do that since my three year old last week.

favorite albums of 2016

In no order, here are some of this year's albums that I enjoyed/listened to the most. Check the links in the band - album name if you are so inclined.

Nothing - Tired of Tomorrow
Really chill pop rock, catchy AF. Lead singer was apparently in jail for stabbing a dude, got out, and started this band.

Culture Abuse - Peach
This album is awesome. Catchy, poppy, sometimes Nirvana-y mid-tempo punk rock pop grunge. I don't know, I probably listened to this album the most this year.

Murder Made God - Enslaved
No idea that brutal death metal could be this catchy.

Angel Du$t - Rock the Fuck On Forever
Vocalist from a super tough hardcore band forms a super fun, super catchy punk rock group, and this is what happens.

Wormed - Krigsu
The vocals are unintelligible. FYI, this is death metal. That pseudo-horizon tho.

Cognitive - Deformity
If you ever wondered what brutal technical death metal should sound like, this might be it.

Destroyer 666 - Wildfire
Awesome heavy metal. Try not to get too PUMPED when listening to the linked up jam.

Joyce Manor - Cody
Another album of infinitely catchy pop punk indie rock from these guys.

And this is a last minute add:

Fury - Paramount
This reminds me of the first time I heard Have Heart, one of my favorite/most listened to bands of the this millennium. Powerful, modern hardcore, with a great throwback feel. The album smokes, and I see myself listening to this a lot.
 

Here are a couple awesome songs from 2016, where the whole albums didn't really grab me:

I thought this Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam jam was pretty fantastic. Apparently it's the lead singer of a band called The Walkmen working with a dude from Vampire Weekend. Don't know about The Walkmen, but Vampire Weekend is pretty sweet.




Wanted to like the new Regina Spektor album, but it is mostly meh. This song is great though. OK, and Bleeding Heart is pretty awesome too.



Biggest disappointment of 2016: No new Abominable Putridity album!

2016, wtf

The last couple weeks have brought one of the things I look forward to at the end of each year: albums of the year lists. It's a nice way for me to check out tunes I didn't hear over the course of the year. Each list generally contains a nice little synopsis of the jam, and then a link to further listening. Some gems I am now enjoying are new albums from Mithras, Insomnium, Asphyx, and a band called Crying. Seriously, Crying. My own list will be coming soonish.

Anyway, one thing i noticed in virtually every list I read was that a lot of musicians died in 2016. OK, that's legit, it is a list concerning music over the past year. Makes sense. But the other thing that I noticed in every list is that 2016 apparently has been a terrible year for the world...and then obviously Trump OMG. Just a couple months ago, we had Hillary Clinton telling us how awesome everything is. It was Trump that was apparently painting this dark picture of the world. Make up your minds, assholes.

Well, what do reasonable people with functioning brains think? SPOILER ALERT: we don't think that.

We like to look at the positives.

OK, but first the negative, a big one: Donald Trump is President. That's the reality, pretty shitty.

With that out of the way, let's focus on some of the good things a Donald Trump presidency means. The first thing that comes to mind is that Hillary Clinton is not President. There will likely NOT be a nuclear holocaust with Russia. This is a good thing. Second and third, neither Ted Cruz nor Bernie Sanders are president! Not one of those three shitheads will be the leader of the free world. Objectively, I think that's pretty awesome. And if you are a pro-equality, anti-war dickhead like me, you should agree.

Real talk though: The Republican candidate was Donald Trump. Donald Trump. Democrats and progressives should have been drooling over this election. Many probably already were anyway.

This should be a unanimous vote, or at least a goddamn landslide.

But then how does a Democrat manage to lose? By employing an election strategy that consisted of fucking up in probably the most epic manner ever, starting with (deceptively) presenting the only candidate that is more vile than the other one. And the Russian hacker stuff too, lol. That some WMDs-in-Iraq bullshit. If you were genuinely excited about Hillary Clinton, it might be best if you were no longer with us. At the very least, just shut the fuck up and go back to your seat at the kids table.

Aside from all the fake news, Trump, the hate crime hoaxes (wait, these hoaxes are actually good because that means that the hate crimes didn't actually happen, right?), the presidential election in general, 2016 was actually a pretty goddamn awesome year for me. I'd explain why, but you likely don't care. I'm not sure I do much either.

If you had a crappy 2016, we at HYM Corp all hope that your 2017 is marginally better.